07/15/2013

Sales 2.0 Tools: They Work Only If You Do

Some people want us to believe that sales
is broken or has completely changed, or even that selling is dead. They believe
that buyers spend their days on social media, happily progressing on their
buyer journey all by themselves. Should we just let all our good sales reps go
and advise them to start a career building Websites?

The fact is, there are new tools and
technology available to help sales reps get better results:

social media to get to know
prospects,

CRM systems to keep track of
contacts,

mobile solutions to liberate
sales reps from their desks.

Paying
Is Not Enough

These new tools are not solutions by
themselves, however, and that never changes. These new possibilities serve to
make your sales reps better at doing what they do best – which is still
basically convincing people that spending their money on your product is a good
idea – but technology that immediately drives results to the bottom line
without a salesperson’s lifting a finger has yet to be invented.

The act of paying for new technology, in
cash or in time, will not get you results. Compare it to getting in shape: no
matter how good we are at wishful thinking, a monthly fee to the health club is
not going to get us any slimmer – but it might trim our wallets.

The
Baby and the Bathwater

Work is the magic word: it drives results. When properly introduced, a
CRM system, a tablet app for salespeople, or using LinkedIn as a sales tool
contributes to getting better results. The challenge is to not throw out the
baby with the bathwater. So these new sales tools are not solutions by
themselves, but don’t let that be your main reason for not adopting them. If
your pre-pre-predecessor at your company had thought like that, you'd be
sifting through a box of index cards and dipping a quill pen into an inkwell
right now, instead of reading this post.

The
Key to Successfully Implementing Sales 2.0 Technology

What does it take to get new technology
introduced? Working for a technology company myself, I must say I have
wondered, too. Why do some of our customers get up and running quickly while
others seem to take a lot of time?

The keys are preparation and follow-up:
those other magic words. Getting new technology widely adopted in a sales team
always involves some change, and good preparation and thoughtful follow-up will
get you a lot closer to the desired results.
Don’t expect sales reps to spend valuable time trying out something new
just because you think it’s a good idea.